Assimilation in biology is a process that plays an important role in the digestive system of a living organism. What is it? Suppose you ate food today to get a certain amount of energy. But have you ever thought about how food gets from a plate into cells? After you eat something, your body begins to break down food during digestion, absorbs nutrients and distributes them to the cells during assimilation, where they are used for growth and recovery.
What happens after a meal?
To understand what food digestion and assimilation are in biology, let's first see how we digest ordinary food. Take an example of a cheeseburger. While chewing, the food is soaked, crushed and turned into a bolus, which then moves through the esophagus into the stomach, where strong acids and enzymes break it down into parts.
Carbohydrates and proteins (bun and meat) begin to be digested before everyone else. Further, in the small intestine, fats (cheese) begin to break down to their individual components, called fatty acids. The cheeseburger digestion is now complete. Now it's time to absorb the nutrients that have entered your body.
Nutrient absorption
The assimilation of nutrients is carried out in the small intestine, which is equipped with small protrusions called microvilli. These important cells take nutrients from the intestines and pump them into the bloodstream, which delivers them to the body. To understand this process, let's look at how carbohydrates are specifically digested.
By the time the carbohydrates contained in the hamburger bun reach the small intestine, they are broken down into sugar, known as glucose. Microvilli contain small pumps that suck it out of the intestinal lumen and move it into its epithelial cells. However, for sugar to enter the rest of the body, it must enter the blood stream. The other side of the intestinal epithelial cells has another pump that directs glucose into the blood vessels that surround the intestines.
Too much glucose in the blood can cause serious problems, so part of it is delivered to the liver for storage. The cells of this vital organ store excess sugar in the form of glycogen. From there, glucose is delivered to all cells in the body that use it to create cellular energy, or ATP, necessary to satisfy all the needs of cells and the body as a whole. Nutrients are not the only thing needed to keep the body healthy. Adequate water intake is very important.
Assimilation in biology - what is it?
Biological assimilation is a combination of two processes during which nutrients are delivered to cells. The first involves the absorption of vitamins, minerals, and other chemicals from food. In the human body, this is done by physical (oral chewing and gastric foaming) and chemical breakdown (enzymes and acids). The second process, called bioassimilation, is a chemical change in substances in the blood, liver, or cell secretions.
Assimilation and dissimilation in biology
In biology, dissimilation is the process of decomposition of organic compounds (proteins, fats, carbohydrates, etc.) into simple substances. The unity of assimilation and dissimilation ensures the exchange of matter and energy, which is the cornerstone of life and ensures the continuous renewal of organic matter throughout the entire life cycle of the body.
Dissimilation in plant and animal organisms
Dissimilation in plants is central to the metabolism of a number of processes, including respiration and glycolysis. The release of energy and the result of these processes used is necessary for the existence of vital signs. Among the final products of dissimilation, the leading positions are occupied by water, gaseous carbon dioxide, and ammonia.
If in animals these products are released outside during storage, then in plants carbon dioxide (not fully) and ammonia are used for biosynthesis of organics and are the starting material for assimilation. The intensity of the processes of dissimilation in plants varies depending on the stage of ontogenesis of the organism and depends on some other factors.
Examples of biological assimilation
The main source of energy for all life on the planet is solar radiation. All organisms that live on Earth can be divided into autotrophic and heterotrophic. The first group is predominantly green plants, capable of converting radiant energy from the sun and through photosynthesis to obtain organic compounds from inorganic substances.
Other living organisms, not counting some microorganisms that can receive energy by means of chemical reactions, absorb the already formed organic matter and use it as an energy source or as a structural material to create organs. The time when the most active and intensive assimilation in biology occurs is the young age in animals and the growing season in plants.
Metabolism: the unity of two processes
Metabolism is the unity of two processes: assimilation and dissimilation. Assimilation is the sum of all the processes of creating living matter: the absorption by a cell of substances entering the body from the environment, the formation of more complex chemical compounds from simpler ones, and so on. Assimilation in biology is a process in which cells using various materials turn into living matter. Dissimilation is the destruction of living matter, decay, the breakdown of substances in cellular structures, in particular in protein compounds. Assimilation (examples in nature are photosynthesis, fixation of nitrogen from the soil, absorption of nutrients during digestion) and dissimilation are inextricably linked. Assimilation is accompanied by an increase in the processes of destruction, which, in turn, pave the way for assimilation.